Bioresource Technology 273 (2019) 25–33

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Bioresource Technology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech

Positive impact of biochar amendment on thermal balance during swine T

manure composting at relatively low ambient temperature
⁎
Hongtao Liua, , Lixia Wangb, Mei Leia
a
Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
b
Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China

G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this study, the effects of biochar amendment on swine manure composting performance at temperatures in the
Biochar −5 °C–15 °C range was investigated. Monitoring result showed biochar addition significantly prolonged ther-
Composting mophilic stage duration to meet harmless standards of livestock manure compost at 5 °C, assisting a seemingly
Thermal balance difficult composting to succeed. Additionally, from viewpoint of thermal balance, biochar increased organic
Organic waste
matter degradation derived heat from 50.4% to 86.5% and water vaporization heat from 29.6% to 73.5% while
decreasing heat exchange by two-fold. Overall, the results presented herein indicated that biochar has potential
to play a positive role in amelioration of animal manure composting at relatively low ambient temperature and
provide insight into how biochar influences heat generation and flow during composting.

1. Introduction bioavailability and amount of heavy metals taken up by plants were

Biochar is a solid product formed by the pyrolysis of biomass or
organic waste, such as wheat straw, rice husks, tree branches, bamboo
rods, or sludge and food waste, and has attracted widespread interest
and concern in the last decade because of its environmental and agro-
nomical benefits (Agegnehu et al., 2017). For instance, amendment of
biochar can improve water holding capacity of soil (Ennis et al., 2012;
Glab et al., 2018), while soil nutrients can also be elevated (Wang et al.,
2014a,b; Manolikaki and Diamadopoulos, 2017; Godlewska et al.,
2017). Additionally, total emissions of greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide,
methane, and nitrous oxide) were reduced after application of biochar
to soil (Wang et al., 2013; Hagemann et al., 2018), and the
decreased in response to amendment of biochar (Karer et al., 2018; Zhu
et al., 2015; Uchimiya et al., 2011). Taken together, these findings in-
dicate that biochar exhibits has great potential for use as a soil ameli-
orant and mitigate potential environmental risk.
Biochar also plays a satisfactory role in organic waste treatment,
especially in aerobic composting (Sanchez-Monedero et al., 2018;
Zhang et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2014; Sun et al., 2016). For example, the
ratio of carbon/nitrogen (C/N), which influences microbial growth and
enables the composting process to proceed, was directly increased by
the addition of biochar to the pile (Jindo et al., 2012; Jain et al., 2018).
Moreover, the cation exchange capacity (CEC), which provides in-
formation regarding nutrient retention of the final compost, was also

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: liuht@igsnrr.ac.cn (H. Liu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2018.10.033
Received 28 August 2018; Received in revised form 12 October 2018; Accepted 13 October 2018
Available online 18 October 2018
0960-8524/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H. Liu et al. Bioresource Technology 273 (2019) 25–33

increased in response to biochar (Prost et al., 2013; Zhang and Sun, Table 1
2014). Aggregate characteristics and physical structure of amended soil Main characteristics of composting mixture and materials.
have also been shown to be improved by biochar (Amoakwah et al., Material Water Volatile bulk density Pile Pile
2017; Sun and Lu, 2014), and it was found to decrease the incidence of content(%, solid (%, (g·cm−3) weight height
plant diseases caused by soil borne pathogens (Bonanomi et al., 2015). wet) dry) (kg) (m)
As expected, biochar inhibited odor generation and release to the air
Swine manure 78.7 ± 0.8 64.7 ± 0.6 0.99 ± 0.03 – –
(Agyarko-Mintah et al., 2017a; Otterpohl, 2012). Furthermore, biochar Rice husk 14.2 ± 1.4 95.2 ± 1.2 0.11 ± 0.04 – –
played a role in suppressive to losses of nitrogen in the form of am- Biochar 3.52 ± 0.1 96.4 ± 0.8 0.15 ± 0.03 – –
monia and carbon in the form of carbon dioxide (Agyarko-Mintah et al., Composted 45.2 ± 1.3 55.1 ± 1.4 0.39 ± 0.06 – –
2017b; Wang et al., 2017a, 2018). It should be mentioned that biochar swine
manure
has all the ingredients to be a suitable additive and bulk agent for
Initial 64.2 ± 0.6 72.2 ± 0.5 0.66 ± 0.07 1090 1.65
composting to render organic waste harmless and stable. com-
Composting is usually conducted in semi-open or outdoor areas posting
because of the odorous gases generated and emitted during the process. mixture
However, in subtropical, temperate and sub-frigid zones, composting is
significantly constrained by outside temperature, particularly during
winter. Indeed, if the outside temperature is below zero or even rela- treatment base located in Xing-shou village, Chang-ping district,
tively cold (e.g., 0 °C–10 °C), the composting process is usually in- Beijing. The mixed composting pile was loaded into a semi-open com-
hibited, delayed or fails. Therefore, environmental temperature is a posting tank that is mainly made of temperature and humidity meter,
critical factor that determines whether composting is successfully pressure meter, thermal flow-meter, ventilator, thermal flux measuring
completed. Moreover, sufficiently high pile temperature is required for board, data logger, cylindrical hydrophobic plastic bucket, online water
organic wastes stabilization and harmlessness. For instance, the USEPA vapor detector, composting material, and temperature probe, using a
(United States Environmental Protection Agency) sets the standard for belt-driven machine, after which it was subjected to aerobic composting
class A compost based on a temperature of 55 °C for 3 days, while class for 21 days, during which time it received intermittent aeration. The
B is formed after a temperature of 40 °C lasts for 5 days (United States period of composting was divided into two stages, an initial 1–2 days,
Environmental Protection Agency, 1994). However, the Chinese stan- during which time the aeration procedure was set to a repetitive cycle
dard for livestock manure harmlessness specifies that the pile tem- of 5 min on and 30 min off. The second stage was from day 3 to 21,
perature must be 50 °C for 10 days or 55 °C for 5 days (National Health when the detailed aeration procedure was set to a cycle of 10 min on
Commission of the People’s Republic of China, Standardization and 30 min off. The pile was aerated intermittently from under the pile
Administration of the People’ Republic of China, 2012). Despite dif- using a ventilator. The pile top area and initial height were 0.98 m2 and
ferences in pile temperature standards between countries, heat accu- 1.65 m, respectively, and the ventilation frequency was
mulation is an essential factor for the composting process (Ghaly et al., 1.95 L min kg−1·VS (Volatile Solid).
2006). This is because the accumulated heat plays a fundamental and When outside average temperatures reached −5 °C, 0 °C, 5 °C, 10 °C,
decisive role in eradication of pathogenic bacteria, water evaporation and 15 °C respectively, the composting experiment were conducted to
and removal, and organic matter degradation to develop humus-like evaluate the effects of different ambient temperature on composting
substances. performance with or without added biochar. The −5 °C and 0 °C ex-
To date, few studies have investigated the impact of biochar periments were conducted in winter of 2016, while the 5 °C, 10 °C and
amendment on organic waste composting completion at relatively low 15 °C experiments were conducted in spring of 2017.
ambient temperatures, such as occur during winter in China. Therefore,
this study was conducted to clarify the relationship between biochar 2.3. Measurement of main composting parameters
amendments and the composting process from the viewpoint of thermal
balance. It is a newly-made hole on the wall to perceive the juncture of Three thermal flux measuring boards, which is mainly made of
biochar ameliorating composting quality in relatively low temperature electro-thermal reactor, infilling, heat flux, negative and positive poles,
above zero. cold and hot areas, were inserted into the compost pile along the ver-
tical direction to constantly monitor the heat exchange between com-
2. Methods and materials posting materials. Moreover, three temperature probes (Pt100) were
inserted into the pile to monitor the temperature change in real time. To
2.1. Experimental materials measure the heat contained in ventilated air flow before entering the
pile, a temperature and humidity meter, thermal flow-meter (Vivo
The composting mixture consisted of swine manure, composted Crop., Madison, WI, USA) and pressure meter were installed in the
swine manure, rice husk and biochar. Swine manure and rice husk were connection between the pile and the ventilator.
collected from a local hog farm and local resident’s home, respectively, To quantify the heat brought by vaporized water during com-
in Chang-ping district, Beijing, China. The biochar was bamboo-derived posting, the weight of vaporized water and its temperature were mea-
and produced by high temperature pyrolysis under anaerobic condi- sured using an online water vapor detector constructed of an ultrasonic
tions at 400 °C–1000 °C. The particle diameter of the biochar ranged anemometer (Gill Instruments Crop., Lymington, UK), temperature and
from 3 to 5 cm. The basic properties of the initial mixture and final humidity probe (Rotronic Crop., Bassersdorf, Swizerland), and a data
composted product are shown in Table 1. The compost materials were logger. To avoid heat exchange between the experimental region and
mixed at a final ratio of C/N (25:1). Biochar was then added to the outside environment, the cylindrical hydrophobic plastic bucket with
composting mixture to give a final amount of 10% (w:w) based on the open both ends and bottom area of 1 m2, height of 1.5 m was fixed.
optimal levels reported in studies from 2008 to 2018. The main char- To assess the organic matter degradation derived heat, samples
acteristics of the composted materials and compost mixture are shown were collected from the upper, middle and lower layers of the compost
in Table 1. pile in the test area using a self-made sampler, then mixed evenly to
develop a final sample. Next, an oxygen bomb calorimeter (IKA Corp.,
2.2. Composting device and environmental temperature design Staufen, Germany) was used to measure heat derived from organic
matter degradation after being dried to constant weight at 105 °C.
The composting experiment was performed in an organic waste Sampling was conducted every 24 h and analysis was repeated three

26
H. Liu et al.
times.
To assess the compost maturity, when composting was completed,
50 g of compost were sampled and soaked in 250 mL deionized water,
shaken for 4 h at room temperature, and then filtered through quanti-
tative filter paper. Next, 5 mL of filtrate was spread on culture dishes
covered with filter paper, after which 50 ryegrass seeds were sown on
the dishes and incubated in the dark at 30 °C and 35–60% relative
humidity for germination. The germination index (GI, [germination
percentage × seed shoot length/germination percentage of con-
trol × seed shoot length of control]×100%) was determined to in-
dicate the maturity of compost.
2.4. Logical relation elaboration on thermal balance and quantification of
its constituent branches
In this composting mixture, the heat input consists of storage heat in
the initial composting material (A), organic matter degradation derived
heat (B), and ventilation sensible heat (C) generated from air flow
streaming into the pile. The heat import consists of storage heat in the
final compost (D), water vaporization heat (E), heat radiation (F), heat
exchange (G), and ventilation sensible heat (H) generated from air flow
absorption. Therefore, the thermal balance equation is given as:
A + B + C = D + E + F + G + H based on the heat generation and
transmission.
Thereinto, the determination of B has been described in the third
paragraph of Section 2.3 according to previous report (Zhao et al.,
2010). A and D consisted of two portions, heat contained in water and
heat contained in solid substances (organic matter and ash content).
The total storage heat in the initial composting material or in the final
compost (Ematrix) was quantified as follows:
Ematrix = Mwater ·Cwater ·T + Msolid·Csolid·T (1)
where Mwater is the water content in material (kg); Msolid is solid sub-
stance content in material (kg); Cwater is the moisture specific heat,
which was 4.184 kJ kg−1 °C−1 in this study (Zhao et al., 2010); Csolid is
the solid material specific heat, which was 1.046 kJ kg−1 °C−1 in this
study (De Guardia et al., 2012).
Based on the equation describing organic matter degradation in the
composting process, a certain amount of gas (carbon dioxide and am-
monia) is generated while oxygen is exhausted. When calculating gas
mass change, 1 kg of organic matter degradation will result in 0.28 kg of
emitted gas. Considering that the generated gas mass only accounts for
0.4% (w/w) of the ventilated dry air, it can be assumed that there is no
loss of dry air mass when the ventilated airflow passes through the
composting pile. Therefore, the value of C or H can be calculated ac-
cording to the temperature difference of ventilated airflow between
that entering and leaving the pile as follows:
ΔEaeration = (Maeration dryair Cdryair + Maeration vapor C vapor ) × (T - Taeration)
(2)
where Δaeration is incremental ventilation sensible heat (kJ) and Maeration
dryair is the mass of ventilated dry air (kg), which can be calculated as
follows:
Pdryair ·Vaeration·Mdryair
Maeration dryair = R·T
Pdryair = Paeration − Pvapor
Pvapor = RHaeration·Pvs
Pvs = 10 ⎡
⎣ ( −2239
Tt + 273 ) + 8.896⎤⎦ × 1333.3 (3)
where Pdryair is dry air partial pressure (pa); Pvs is saturated water vapor
pressure (pa); Paeration is ventilation pipe pressure (pa); Pvapor is water
vapor partial pressure (pa); Vaeration is ventilation volume (m3); Mdryair
is the molar mass of air, which was set to 29 g mol−1; R is the ideal gas
constant, which was set to 8.31 J mol−1·k−1; RHaeration is the ventila-
tion flow relative humidity (%); Maeration vapor is the mass of ventilated
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Bioresource Technology 273 (2019) 25–33
water vapor (kg); Cdryair is the dry air specific heat, which was
1.004 kJ kg−1 °C−1 (Haug, 1993); Cvapor is the water vapor specific
heat, which was 1.841 kJ kg−1 °C−1 (Haug, 1993); T is the temperature
of composting material (°C); and Taeration is the temperature of venti-
lation (°C).
Therefore, the value of E (Eevapor) can be calculated as follows:
Eevapor (Mevapor − Mareation vapor ) × Levapor (4)
where Mevapor is the amount of water evaporation (kg) and Levapor is the
coefficient of water evaporation, which can be quantified by equation
(5):
L evapor = 2501 − 2.65 × T (5)
where T is the composting temperature.
The value of F (i.e., heat radiation; Eradiation) was quantified as
follows:
Eradiation = σ·A·(T 4 − Tt )·Fa·F (6)
where the value of σ is given as 5.67 × 10−11 kJ s−1·m−2·k−4; A is the
experimental area (m−2); T is the composting temperature (°C); Tt is the
surface temperature of the composting material (°C); Fa is 0.5 and Fe is
0.85.
In this experiment, a heat flux sensor, which depends on the electro-
thermal reactor to measure the temperature gradient, was employed to
monitor the heat exchange between composting materials. The electro-
thermal reactor is made of two different metals. When the electro-
thermal reactor receives heat energy, thermoelectric potential will be
generated between the nodes of the two different metal materials,
which will be output in the form of voltage. The output voltage, which
is proportional to the heat flux, was automatically recorded by the data
acquisition system. Therefore, G (i.e. heat conduction; Econduction mea-
sure) can be calculated as follows:
3600 × V × S × t
Econduction measure =
K (7)
where V is the output voltage value (mV); K is the sensitivity correction
coefficient, which was set to 13.31 in this study; t is the composting
period (h) and S is the heat conduction area (m2). Finally, S = L × H,
where L is girth of the pile bottom (m) and H is the pile height (m).
2.5. Statistics analysis
All figures were developed using OriginPro 9.0. One-way ANOVA
was performed to identify differences among treatment effects, and
multiple comparisons were analyzed according to the least significant
difference method using SPSS v. 13.0. Mean values followed by dif-
ferent lowercase and capital letters horizontally were significantly dif-
ferent at p < 0.05 in figures and those followed by different lowercase
letters vertically were significantly different at p < 0.05 in Table 2.
Values are the average of three replicates and bars represent the stan-
dard deviation.
Table 2
Maturity of final compost without and with additions of biochar at 5 °C ambient
temperature.
Treatment Germination index Ratio of humic acid/fulvic acid
(%) (HA/FA)
Without biochar 62.2 ± 3.5b 1.02 ± 0.09b
addition
With biochar addition 84.7 ± 4.8 a 1.46 ± 0.21 a
H. Liu et al.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Amendment with biochar prolonged composting thermophilic stage
duration and improved sanitation at relatively low ambient temperature
(5 °C)
As well known, beside anaerobic digestion, aerobic composting is an
effective approach to recycling and vaporization of animal manure to
beneficial substances for soil (Otterpohl, 2012). The composting pro-
cess is usually characterized by a dynamic change in pile temperature,
and the duration of the thermophilic stage should meet the require-
ments of regulatory officials for harmlessness and sanitation standards.
Previous studies in this field have focused on the relationship between
microbial activity, organic matter degradation and crucial parameters
such as oxygen conditions, carbon dioxide concentration and nitrogen
transformation, which are primarily associated with the biochemical
nature of composting (Lv et al., 2013; Komilis and Ham, 2006;
Wilshusen et al., 2004). However, little attention has been paid to
thermal balance in composting, as it has instead been viewed as an
absolute physical process. Nevertheless, it is known that thermal bal-
ance is associated with successful composting, although it is not clear if
biochar is an acceptable and beneficial amendment material (Xiao
et al., 2017) that can have positive effect on thermal balance, even at
low ambient temperature.
Fig. 1. Change in pile temperature during composting period without (A) and with (B) addition of biochar (rate of 10%, w:w) to composting mixture at different
ambient temperatures.
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Bioresource Technology 273 (2019) 25–33
As shown in Fig. 1(A), in the control treatment (without addition of
biochar to composting mixture), there were 5 days (from day 4–8) on
which the temperature exceeded 55 °C when the ambient temperature
was 10 °C and 7 days (from day 4–10) on which the temperature was
above 55 °C when the ambient temperature was 15 °C, indicating that
these two treatments met the livestock manure harmlessness and sa-
nitation standards of Class A of the United States and China. However,
when the ambient temperatures were −5 °C, 0 °C and 5 °C these stan-
dards were not met. Indeed, at −5 °C and 0 °C, the highest pile tem-
peratures were only 0.8 °C and 11.2 °C, respectively, during the com-
posting process. The temperature reached 38.4 °C at an ambient
temperature of 5 °C; however, which was not considered successful. As
shown in Fig. 1(B), the change in pile temperature at ambient tem-
peratures of 5 °C differed between the control treatment and the
treatment containing added biochar. Specifically, there were 5 days
(from day 4 to 8) when the temperature reached 56.4 °C when biochar
was added, but this did not occur in the control. At other ambient
temperatures, the pile temperature did not differ significantly between
the biochar treated and control piles.
The results of the present study showed that blending of biochar
into the composting mixture prolonged the duration for which the
compost temperature was above 55 °C at relatively low ambient tem-
perature. This finding seems to be in accordance with those of Jain et al.
(2018), who found that biochar addition resulted in advanced
H. Liu et al.
Fig. 2. The proportion of heat input during the composting process without (A) and with (B) addition of biochar (rate of 10%, w:w) at different ambient temperatures
(−5°C, 0 °C, 5 °C, 10 °C, 15 °C).
thermophilic temperatures of 59 °C when compared with compost that
did not contain biochar. Similarly, Czekala et al. (2016) reported that
addition of biochar at 10% accelerated emergence of the highest daily
composting temperatures and led to the maximum observed tempera-
tures. Moreover, Liu et al. (2014) indicated that biochar addition re-
sulted in a shorter time to enter the thermophilic phase, a higher
temperature (56 °C) and a longer duration of the thermophilic phase.
These reports confirmed that biochar plays a role in increasing pile
temperature and lengthening thermophilic duration. In the present
study, biochar was also found to have a positive effect on thermophilic
duration in compost at low ambient temperature relative to compost
that did not contain added biochar.
3.2. Introduction of biochar reapportioned heat input during composting at
relatively low ambient temperature (5 °C)
Although biochar influenced pile temperature elevation and accu-
mulation, pile temperature is still consequential reflection of the
thermal balance between heat input and output during composting.
Therefore, the pattern of heat input was also investigated based on real
and simulated data. As shown in Fig. 2(A), the distribution of heat input
indicated that the ratio of organic matter degradation derived heat
among total input-heat gradually increased significantly as ambient
temperature increased from −5 °C to 15 °C in the treatment without
added biochar. However, the introduction of biochar changed the
proportion of input-heat, mainly at ambient temperatures of 5 °C.
Specifically, as shown in Fig. 2(B), biochar amendment induced an
increase of 50.4% to 86.5% of organic matter degradation derived heat
when compared with treatment without biochar addition. Additionally,
the proportion of storage heat in the initial composting material ob-
viously decreased from 28.6% to 7.8%, while that of ventilation sen-
sible heat dropped from 21% to 5.7%. However, there were no differ-
ences in the distribution pattern of heat input between piles with and
without biochar amendment at −5 °C, 0 °C, 10 °C, and 15 °C.
Among these three indicators, the temporal change in organic
matter degradation derived heat and degradable organic matter at 5 °C
was emphatically followed. As shown in Fig. 3, the organic matter
degradation derived heat during composting with added biochar was
highest on day 4 (Fig. 3(A)), when the degradable organic matter
content also showed a sharp decrease (Fig. 3(B)) compared with the
treatment without added biochar.
Present results indicated that addition of biochar to composting
systems accelerated organic matter degradation and increased organic
matter degradation derived heat, which accounted for total heat input.
Recent reports showed that biochar has intrinsic and nascent structural
and sorption properties that may alter physical and chemical properties
29
Bioresource Technology 273 (2019) 25–33
of a composting mixture; thus, influencing some micro-unit or in-
tracellular polymer (Agyarko-Mintah et al., 2017b). This might provide
a hint that is beneficial to better understand about incremental organic
matter degradation derived heat. Biochar is characterized by a large
specific surface area, porosity, and a large amount of functional groups
(Godlewska et al., 2017; Sanchez-Monedero et al., 2018). Furthermore,
Wiedner et al. (2015) used energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to
demonstrate that biochar surface oxidation can be accelerated through
composting treatment. Taken together, these findings indicate that
biochar provides increased porosity, surface area and functional groups,
which may be involved in oxidation to organic matter and improved
dissolution of intracellular substances. This improvement in dissolution,
to some extent, has contributed to increased heat generation from or-
ganic matter degradation. However, blending of biochar into com-
posting systems also promoted microbial activity, which was re-
sponsible for decomposition of organic matter (Pei et al., 2017; Xiao
et al., 2017). The addition of biochar also improved the oxygen supply,
making it more effective to improve aerobic microbial activity (He
et al., 2017). The addition of biochar also optimized the composting
environment to facilitate microbial growth (Liu et al., 2017; Sanchez-
Garcia et al., 2015). Enhancement of the microbial level in response to
addition of biochar subsequently increased the generation of organic
matter degradation derived heat.
3.3. Introduction of biochar reshaped proportions of heat output during the
composting process at relatively low ambient temperature (5 °C)
The effects of biochar on the proportion of heat output during
composting were also analyzed. As shown in Fig. 4(A), the water va-
porization heat increased from 29.6% to 73.5%, while that of ventila-
tion sensible heat and storage heat in the final compost decreased
gradually in the control treatment. Similar to the heat input pattern,
biochar also significantly affected the distribution of heat output, par-
ticularly at ambient temperatures of 5 °C. As shown in Fig. 4(B),
treatment with biochar triggered a proportional increase of 14.8%
(from 58.4% to 73.2%) in water vaporization heat in comparison to the
control treatment. A magnifier was employed to the detailed temporal
change of this process with biochar addition in comparison to treatment
without biochar, a remarkable increase in water vaporization heat was
found on day 3, with maximum amounts being observed on day 4 and 5
(Fig. 5). In addition, significant differences between the biochar
amended and control treatments existed at almost all time points ex-
amined. Slight reductions in ventilation sensible heat and storage heat
in the final compost of the treatment that received biochar were also
found relative to the control (Fig. 4). Additionally, a two-fold decrease
in heat exchange from 13.2% to 6% was observed, implying that
H. Liu et al. Bioresource Technology 273 (2019) 25–33

Fig. 3. Change in organic matter degradation derived heat (A) and degradable organic matter content (B) during composting process without and with addition of
biochar (rate of 10%, w:w) at 5 °C ambient temperature.

biochar addition drastically decreased conductive heat between com- biochar during the composting process.
post material and ambient air; therefore, temporal changes in heat Water vaporization heat is proportional to water removal from the
exchange were monitored. As shown in Fig. 6, the heat exchange of the composting pile to air. The effectiveness of this process is usually clo-
treatment with added biochar was lower than that without added sely associated with inside structure and porosity of composting

Fig. 4. Proportion of heat output during the composting process without (A) and with (B) addition of biochar (rate of 10%, w:w) at different ambient temperatures
(−5°C, 0 °C, 5 °C, 10 °C, 15 °C).

30
H. Liu et al.
Fig. 5. Change in water vaporization heat during composting process without and with addition of biochar (rate of 10%, w:w) at 5 °C ambient temperature.
Fig. 6. Change in heat exchange during composting process without and with addition of biochar (rate of 10%, w:w) at 5 °C ambient temperature.
materials. Previous reports showed that amendment of biochar effec-
tively improved porosity and optimized pile structure (Liu et al., 2017;
Sanchez-Garcia et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2014). Such improvements
were undoubtedly beneficial to vertical water streaming in the form of
vapor. Increased water vapor generation and flow will certainly cause
more heat to flow out of the composting pile. Indeed, current results
showed that biochar addition to the composting mixture increased
water vaporization heat, which was the largest source of heat loss
during composting. Meanwhile, its proportion to total heat output led
by biochar addition was closer to those in ambient condition of 10 and
15 °C, compared with treatment without biochar addition. Wang et al.
(2016) concluded that water evaporation heat was the second greatest
source of heat loss from a composting system using a model of thermal
balance. Interestingly, heat exchange triggered by biochar addition
decreased by approximately 50% when compared with that without
biochar addition. These findings indicate that heat loss via conduction
from composting mixture to ambient air was mitigated. Simulation of
the thermal balance of the composting process suggested that conduc-
tion was the main source of heat loss components (Wang et al., 2014a).
Based on synchronous increases in organic matter degradation derived
heat and water vaporization heat, some specific elements in the thermal
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Bioresource Technology 273 (2019) 25–33
balance may have a critical influence on success or failure of com-
posting. In this study, heat exchange decreased in response to biochar
addition, indicating that heat conduction retention by biochar addition
played a decisive role in lower ambient temperature composting.
3.4. Addition of biochar improved final compost quality at 5 °C ambient
temperature
After composting was completed, the maturity indicators of the final
compost, including germination index and ratio of humic acid/fulvic
acid (HA/FA), were analyzed. As shown in Table 2, the germination
index exhibited by biochar added-compost was to 84.7%, which was
approximately 36% greater than that of control treatment without
biochar addition and met generally admitted as mature value of 80%.
Similar to the germination index, the value of HA/FA calculated from
biochar added-compost was also 43% higher than that of the control
treatment. These findings indicate that biochar amendment changed
the heat balance, while improving the maturity of the final compost.
Subsequent results indicated incremental compost maturity in-
cluding germination index and ratio of HA/FA were responsible to
biochar amendment into composting mixture in low ambient
H. Liu et al.
temperature. These findings coincided with recent conclusions obtained
by, Awasthi et al. (2018), Dias et al. (2010), Jindo et al (2016), Wang
et al. (2014b, 2017b). However, the results of the present study in-
dicated that biochar can play a role in promoting humification at low
ambient temperature as well as at normal room temperature. However,
more important, this acceleration on maturity is just auxiliary to make a
description on final thermal balance resulting from biochar amendment
to swine manure followed by organic matter humification and mature
compost production.
4. Conclusion
Amendment of biochar to swine manure composting mixture sig-
nificantly prolonged the duration for which the temperature was above
55 °C at low ambient temperature compared with treatment without
biochar amendment. Additionally, thermal balance analysis indicated
that biochar addition remarkably increased organic matter degradation
derived heat that is a main component of heat input, and water va-
porization heat, which is an important constitute of heat output.
However, heat exchange, another constitute of heat output, was found
to undergo a two-fold reduction. These results imply that biochar has
potential to play positive role in amelioration of aerobic composting at
low ambient temperature.
Acknowledgements
This study was financially supported by the National Key Research
& Development Program of China (2018YFD0500205;
2016YFD0501401), Chu Ko-chen Outstanding Young Scholars Program
of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research,
Chinese Academy of Sciences (2017RC102) and the Instrument
Developing Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (YZ201605).
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